Interior Ministry presents report showing group uses mosques to raise funds for group’s activities in Lebanon.
By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL, JERUSALEM POST CORRESPONDENTHezbollah supporters(photo credit: Reuters/Khalil Hassan)
BERLIN – The head of Germany’s federal agency for domestic intelligence and the country’s Interior Ministry have recently presented a report showing Hezbollah’s use of German based mosques and their affiliated organizations to raise funds for the terrorist group’s activities in Lebanon.According to the 2012 report published this month by the domestic intelligence agency, known as the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the terrorist organization finances its activities through “Hezbollah-affiliated mosque associations” and raises funds within the framework of “religious ceremonies” as well as membership contributions.Dr. Hans-Peter Friedrich, the head of Germany’s Interior Ministry, and Dr. Hans-Georg Maaßen, the relatively new director of the intelligence agency introduced the report several weeks ago in Berlin.It is unclear from the report if the Hezbollah funds in Germany are funneled to aid the terrorist group’s efforts in Syria to support the regime of President Bashar Assad.The report showed a steady presence of Hezbollah members in the Federal Republic, 950 members, the same figure for 2011. The intelligence agency’s 2010 report showed the number of Hezbollah members to be 900.The 381-page 2012 intelligence report lists the Hezbollah attack on Israeli tourists in Burgas, Bulgaria, under the category of Islamic terrorism.Although the Bulgarian Interior Minister blamed Hezbollah for the attack, which resulted in the deaths of five Israelis and their Bulgarian bus driver, the German report stated that “Hezbollah was brought into connection with the attack” but that the link was not yet definitively proven. The report was published before the Bulgarian government submitted new evidence, according to a JTA article last week, showing a Hezbollah operative used a printer in Lebanon to aid the terrorists with fake documents as part of their planning for the attack.The German report also contained information about the July 7, 2012, arrest of a Hezbollah member in Cyprus who plotted to kill Israelis and Jews on the Island. Germany’s report, however, does not contain the March conviction of Hossam Taleb Yaacoub, who admitted he was a Hezbollah operative and part of the terrorist organization’s global mission to monitor Jews.Young German Hezbollah members are strongly connected and active on the Internet, including social media and various web forums, the report noted. Growing street demonstrations involving Hezbollah supporters and members were documented, including an event attended by 1,100 Hezbollah supporters last year at the Al-Quds Day march in Berlin. At 600, the 2012 number of young members almost doubled from 2011.According to the report, as many as 3,000 Hezbollah supporters participated in the Iranian-sponsored Al- Quds Day march in the 1990s. The event calls for the destruction of Israel and stokes anti-Western hate.
Though not cited in the agency’s report, The Jerusalem Post reported in 2012 that the Imam Ali Mosque in Hamburg, widely considered by experts in Germany and abroad to be part of the long arm of Iran’s regime in the Federal Republic, chartered buses and sent Hezbollah supporters to an anti-Israel and anti-Western demonstration. Hamburg’s local intelligence agency stated that “two buses with roughly 90 people traveled to Berlin this year. The costs for the travel were paid for by the IZH,” an organization that operates the Shi’ite mosque.According to the report, Berlin has 250 active Hezbollah members. It revealed that in Berlin there is an annual “victory celebration of the liberation” celebrating the IDF withdrawal from south Lebanon in May 2000. On May 26, 2012, roughly 700 Hezbollah participants took part in the event.The report noted that in September 2012, Hezbollah members in many German cities protested against the anti-Islam film Innocence of Muslims.Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah called for worldwide demonstrations against the film.The most recent intelligence report cited the Hezbollah-controlled Orphans Project Lebanon in Germany as a way to send money to Lebanon.Hezbollah has long used German territory to raise funds for the families of suicide bombers involved in killing Israelis. A 2009 report from the European Foundation for Democracy titled “Hezbollah’s Fund-raising Organization in Germany” revealed that the Orphans Project Lebanon, based in Göttingen, Lower Saxony, is “the German branch of a Hezbollah suborganization” that “promotes suicide bombings” and aims to destroy Israel.Germany still allows the Orphans Project Lebanon to operate but eliminated its tax subsidy several years ago.With the new push by Germany, France and the United Kingdom to ban Hezbollah’s military wing in the EU, it remains unclear whether the blacklisting efforts will affect the work of the Orphans Project Lebanon. Austria, the Czech Republic and Finland have rejected the move to sanction Hezbollah within the EU.
